


Sometimes Fairytale is a Reality

by BlackRook



Series: Fairytale [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 13:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackRook/pseuds/BlackRook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have brought Bucky home. But it's just the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes Fairytale is a Reality

**Author's Note:**

> The second in the series, taking right after the previous one, but can stand alone.
> 
> Special thanks to Momentary Grace for the beta-reading!

He met people like that. People who had someone besides themselves in their head. Actually, both versions of him did. There was that old guy in Brooklyn, who was Andrew one day and Matthew the other (Steve managed to get along with both)  and the Red Room had all kinds of subjects, operatives and scientists, and some were really creepy. So yeah, he knows a little about this… condition. In Russian, he even knows the term for it, but in English he can only come up with ‘crazy’. Doesn’t matter, really. What does matter is that he has to figure out which version of him is real, and which is just a product of imagination and drugs. Is he James Buchanan Barnes, an American soldier, finally rescued from that ravine and brought home to recover, or is he Winter Soldier, a Soviet weapon, captured by parties unknown on enemy soil?

 His daily visitors just add to the confusion, because at least one of them ought to be a hallucination. He just doesn’t know who – Steve or Natasha? Captain America or Black Widow?

 *~*~*

 “We are dealing with a version of multiple personality disorder.” Dr. Amanda Riven, head of SHIELD Psych department, never liked to waste her time on niceties.

 “What exactly does that mean, Doctor?” Steve is as polite as always, charming half-smile in place – part of the reason why he has point in dealing with Riven, even if Natasha has much more experience with brain games. But Steve has that effect on middle-age women, and everyone in SHIELD is a little wary of bullshitting Captain America.

 “It means that he has two sets of memories and personality traits now, and in his mind they don’t overlap. My guess is that he believes only one of them is real; he just doesn’t know which one. For us, there are two possible objectives here  - we cant try to expunge Winter Soldier entirely, or we can try to help him reconnect the two.”

 “And what are your orders, Doctor Riven?” Natasha is probably being unfair with the sarcasm -she’s seen the Doctor coming up head to head with Fury protecting her patients -  but she can’t help herself. Riven smiles knowingly.

 “I won’t deny that SHIELD is interested in the debriefing of Winter Soldier, Agent Romanoff, but, as he hasn’t been active in the last two decades, it isn’t our priority.” She shifts her gaze to Steve again. “You are Sergeant Barnes’s next of kin, Captain Rogers. Until he is capable of speaking for himself, the decision on course of treatment is yours.”

 They don’t  discuss the fact that suppressing Winter Soldier means suppressing all the memories of Natasha as well; if it happens, she will get over it, and anyway her wishes, like SHIELD wishes and even Steve’s aren’t a priority here. What’s best for James is. So they talk to Clint, who remembers every second of being under Loki’s control, and to Bruce, who still asks “did I hurt anybody?” after each time Hulk makes an appearance. Natasha even manages – with help from some quality vodka – to share some of her experience of being unmade and reinventing oneself.

 “I don’t want to be like them,” Steve says in the end. “Bucky is not a coward. That should be his choice.”

 *~*~*~

So, there is another option on the table. He actually was Bucky Barnes, who fell from that train and was recovered by Soviets and brainwashed into their weapon. That is only a tiny bit less crazy than ‘two different people’, but does ring true. Winter Soldier is thrilled to learn he used to be a person and so might be a person again; Bucky Barnes is terrified to learn what he had been turned into, what he was used for. But they find common ground in wishing revenge on those responsible, no matter how indirectly.

 He needs a plan of action, and for that he needs to know exactly where he is and which one of his visitors is real. Yes, it’s still an unanswered question and he refuses to believe he is hallucinating them both. Of course, they are both dead, according to his (Winter Soldier's) knowledge, but that doesn’t mean shit. He himself has died more than twice over, so. 

 Steve (or Steve’s ghost) says Bucky isn’t responsible for Winter Soldier’s crimes, and it might even be true, but it doesn’t change how Bucky feels. Though, with  Steve at his side, it will be easier to make amends… and he gets a vibe that Steve is blaming himself for that train, he will have to deal with that, too.

 What Natalia says is confusing, and he knows better than to believe her words, anyway. But she hasn’t ratted him out to them yet, that’s what matters. (If they’d known he rediscovered Bucky Barnes, they would have been here with their shockers and drugs, making him forget again, like they made him forget Steve in the 40ties, like they made him forget Natasha in the 80ties… He doesn’t want to forget anymore.) So, if Natasha hasn’t ratted him out, maybe he could convince her to run away with him, maybe freelance in killing bad guys for a while, even the balance a little…

 He needs to know with which one of them he should talk, whom to listen to… There is no version of reality in which they are both here, so who is real? And he doesn’t even know what answer he’ll like more.

 Steve is the reason Bucky Barnes could call himself a good person, his best friend, his brother; Natasha is the reason Winter Soldier wanted to be a person, his Red Flower, his Reddie, the only thing in the past years worth remembering. He doesn’t want to choose between them. He doesn’t.

 ~*~*~

 It takes them some time to figure out what the main problem is, but even after they do, all they can do is to tell the same story over and over, together.

 The story about a plane crushing into the ocean, and countless fruitless expeditions that followed. About one crazy archer (‘our kind of crazy, Buck, you’ll like him’, Steve adds) who brings in dangerous targets instead of terminating them. About SHIELD believing in second chances and other impossible things. About global and even extra-terrestrial threats and a special response team, ready to face them. About glaciers shifting to reveal that plane – just in time for one national hero to lead this team in a battle against aliens and a crazy (‘Red Skull kind of crazy’) god. About the team remaining the team after the battle ended. They repeat the same story again and again, and finally – finally – they get through.

 James looks at them without fog in his eyes, for the first time really looks at them, and asks quietly:

 “I can have you both?”

 It hurts her to hear his voice so small, and she is sure it hurts Steve even more, but they try not to show, and they answer, simultaneously and with as much confidence as they can:

 “Yes.”

 Several minutes later Natasha slips out of the room, leaving James shaking in Steve’s arms. He needs that now, that unconditional trust which has always been between them, not the ‘mother of all _it’s complicated_ ’ that she and James have. (Stark’s metaphors might be annoying, but they usually are spot on.)

 She heads to the surveillance room and, after scaring the tech on duty, turns off the cameras in James’s room and erases the last ten minutes, just to be sure. SHIELD doesn’t need to see James this vulnerable, and Stark certainly doesn’t need any ammunition for threesome jokes.

 ~*~*~

 “So, which arm do you want? Boring-but-almost-like-the-real-one, creepy metal one with lots of gadgets, or something in between?” That’s the first phrase Bucky hears from infamous Tony Stark, and it startles a laugh from him.

 It’s been three days since his breakdown (Steve calls it the turning point), and he’s been talking with various SHIELD doctors, but, as far as he knows, his status hasn’t been officially changed from ‘crazy one’. No one has yet mentioned a debriefing, either, and he definitely isn’t getting out of here without it, so Stark’s question is surprising in more ways than one.

 “Am I cleared for that?” Bucky asks and gets a shrug in return.

 “Don’t care. Your two babysitters know I’m here, though. Good enough for me.”

 Stark puts a folder he brought with him on the table; it turns out to be some sort of a computer and sends three-dimensional half-transparent schematics all over the room. He takes one of the projections like it’s a material thing, and grins:

“So, Barnes, arm. Let’s talk.”

 And they do. Tony Stark is a genius and a jerk; Bucky likes him. His attitude is refreshing in a way, making everything all the more real. Of course, his jokes are insensitive to say the least, but not in a familiar ‘you’re not supposed to have any feelings anyway’ way.  He is more like ‘hey, pal, life is fun, live a little’, and Bucky is really curious about how Stark and Steve have managed to become friends. They obviously are, because what Stark is doing here, he is doing for Steve and Natasha. Of course, he isn’t saying this, he’s going on about challenge and pissing off Director Fury and stocking up popcorn for upcoming acts of “Assassin Triangle” drama… Bucky indulges him and, in case there is a pool out there, doesn’t mention that he is not jealous of Clint Barton aka Hawkeye.

 He really isn’t. He learned enough of Natasha’s story to know he owes the man big time. And not for saving Natasha’s life against orders - this type of debts is easily repaid in their world. But for teaching her something that Winter Soldier never could. Something that is probably bad for survival, but necessary for living.

 After three hours of mutual insults, they agree on the specs, and Tony leaves, promising to come back in a couple of days for final measurements. He also ‘accidentally’ forgets a little screen (tablet, these things are called tablets) with various footage of Avengers missions – mostly Battle of New York, but some smaller or individual ones are there, too. “So you’ll know how awesome we are.”

 Bucky is eager to see it, because, while he accepted the idea of Captain America and Black Widow on the same team, he still can’t get his head around Natasha on a combat team. She fits better than he would have thought, though, and he’ll have to rethink her partnership with Barton, too. It’s obvious, and not just from his choice of weapon, that Barton is first and foremost a combat shooter, not an assassin.  Sergeant Barnes used to be a combat shooter; Winter Soldier’ skills will have to be… Bucky kills that thought. Too early, way too early.

 Bucky is watching the Avengers giving hell to a bunch of drones when Steve comes in; he waves him over without tearing from the screen. The footage ends couple of minutes later, and Bucky raises his eyes to meet Steve’s grin.

 “That was a fun one.”

 “Oh yeah, I saw.”

 “Could have used another sniper out there, though.” And suddenly Steve is serious despite the grin and it’s that smoked bar in Europe again, and Bucky’s fingers look for the glass.

 There are a lot of things that should matter  - SHIELD’s plans for him, Winter Soldier’ crimes, the Army, the fact that, to be honest, he still is a basket case… But somehow they don’t, and there is only one thought.

 “I see you’re still too dumb to run away from a fight?”


End file.
